


How the Gods Stole Eugenides's Heart

by qwanderer



Series: stand eye to eye with gods and men [3]
Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Gen, I don't spoil Conspiracy of Kings much though, M/M, Thick as Thieves Spoilers, and will require me to reread two more of the books before the end., but then it gained sentience and ate me, now it has a fractal plot and seven chapters, really spoilers for all the books but I suppose at this point that's kind of a given, this was supposed to be a ficlet about Eugenides copying the Enoclitus scroll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-18 01:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11281221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: There are seven major steps to stealing a stubborn, strong heart.Eugenides gets to know them, inside and out.





	1. Get their attention.

**Author's Note:**

> This spoils the books. 
> 
> Chapters will be posted whenever. Probably sometime in the next few days. There will be exactly seven Because Structure. Most of them will be short.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowledge is power. Time to go steal some!

_What can I steal with only one hand?_

It was more or less a constant background hum in his mind as he traveled back home. 

He kept trying to reach for things, falling short, getting confused, bumping his stump against things and yelping in pain. 

He couldn't even pick his own pockets, let alone anyone else's. Not that there was anything in his pockets. 

No, wait. There was a coin. The coin Kamet had given him. He couldn't reach it, but it was there, tucked away. 

Eugenides laughed aloud. He'd lost his hand, but he'd managed to hold on to that little round disc, all a slave could spare to help him get home. 

He wouldn't waste it, Gen determined. He _would_ make it back home. And it would be thanks to that little coin, reminding him that he still had the ability to laugh. 

* * *

He wanted to send something back, as a thank-you. But what could he make, or steal, that Kamet would value? 

He remembered Kamet's stories, his pride in knowledge from all over the world. And here lay Eugenides, in a library. 

He could learn to write with his left hand, surely. And that would give him something, at least, to do that other people might appreciate. 

Gen practiced his writing just a little before choosing a scroll by Enoclitus and starting to copy it down for his friend. 

His writing was very bad, still, but he hated being of no use to anyone. Kamet would appreciate the words, no matter the hand. 

Or perhaps he'd appreciate the hand, no matter how bad, since it came from a friend. 

_He'll think I'm barely literate._

_He has so few things of his own. He wants the words. He won't care what they look like._

_Knowledge is power._

_Perhaps that is what I can steal with only one hand. Perhaps I will go to a university._

* * *

Apparently the gods wanted him to stop whining. 

He'd been missing a lot, so focused on his one task that he had been so sure was the only thing left to him. 

Eddis told him that he was still her Thief. That she still needed him. 

"Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time." 

Eddis told him of Attolia. Of her ruthless advice. 

"...I'd been thinking for some time of deposing the queen of Attolia." 

It was the threat to Attolia's throne that really got his attention. 

He truly, truly doubted that Attolia would treat with the Mede. He truly believed the throne was safest in her hands. Even after the shock of hearing her advice to Eddis. 

Even after watching her take away his hand. 

He needed to save her. From both the Mede, and from his own queen. Though he loved his own queen, too. 

_Love is an enigma._

_Trapped by love. Has Kamet ever felt that way? Is that how he thinks he feels about his master, Nahuseresh, I wonder?_

_I cannot imagine anyone loving Nahuseresh, really. Certainly not the girl dancing with imaginary friends under the orange trees. That is not as it appears._

_Kamet told me things he didn't realize he was telling. The way he spoke of the stories of Immakuk and Ennikar, for one. Enough of his master to know that underneath everything else, he was just like all the others who had tried to marry Attolia. But more of his empire, of his emperor, how expansion was inevitable and if one wants power, one must grasp it from inside the great imperial machine._

_I would have been quite content to stay and watch from afar and polish sandals, but that was not how things went, and now I must act._

Attolia's throne was in danger. 

Thieves steal trinkets. Emperors steal thrones. 


	2. Offer them a life with you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gen and Sten take Sounis.

Thieves steal trinkets. Emperors steal thrones. 

Scholars steal thoughts. 

Soldiers steal deaths. 

Slavers steal lives. 

Lovers steal hearts. 

Gen could find a place for himself somewhere, in all of that. 

And his queen had asked two things of him. 

_Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time._

Steal _eirene_ , Eugenides. Steal me _kairos_. 

He was the only one who could possibly figure out how to steal Irene. Irene Attolia was no one's trinket. There were simply many men who hadn't figured that out yet. 

Stealing his queen some time... for that, he would need help. 

He wondered if a watch-maker knew how to steal _kairos_. Or were they only in the business of _chronos?_

It didn't matter. If Gen could diversify, so could his brother. 

* * *

"Come with me." 

Stenides, who'd long past become accustomed to his brother's ability to show up in the shop without any warning, rolled his eyes. "I'm in the middle of a watch." 

"This is more important," Gen said. "Come with me." 

"Where?" Sten asked. 

"A mission for the Queen. That's all you need to know." 

"Hogwash. Where?" 

"Sounis." 

"Sounis?!" Sten frowned at him. "What part of Sounis?" 

"Why?" 

"I won't be going anywhere near the shore," Stenides insisted. "The easiest way to destroy a watch is to take it to the shore. Before you notice it happening, sand gets deep into the inner workings, in between the gears, and the gears chew each other up. Destroys the watch from the inside out." 

Eugenides gaped at him "Oh. Oh, my god. That's beautiful. Come with me, Sten. Come with me to the coast of Sounis. We're going to steal time for Eddis, just as she asked. We're going to stop a watch." 

"I... don't think that'll work?" His brother looked at him as if he wasn't sure Gen had recovered from his wound fever. 

"It might," Gen replied, "if the watch we stop from ticking is Sounis's navy." 

Stenides looked at the watch gears in front of him, and then back up at Eugenides. 

"Okay," he said. 

Eugenides blinked. "Really?" 

Stenides looked thoughtfully around at the shop. "I think I've learned all I can from my master," he said. "I think I could learn a lot from you." 

"And it wouldn't hurt to have the Queen in your debt," Eugenides said with a little bit of a smirk. 

"Don't play it that way with me, Gen," he said. "I'm serious. You've grown up. You've grown up well. I want to know how your mind works. I want to know," he said, with a tiny echoing smirk of his own, "what makes you tick." 

And there, the second half of Gen's plan dropped into his mind, fully formed. 

He could steal people. 

Steal someone who loves knowledge, someone who loves power, someone who is faithful to their master for those reasons by taking away their belief that their master is the one who can bring them power. 

Maybe threaten their life a little to push them into a decision. 

Yes. Solid plan. 

* * *

"You're taking _Stenides?_ " his queen asked him. 

"I need hands. Stenides has the best hands out of anyone I know." 

Eddis shook her head. "I dread telling my minister of war that I've sent his two sons who _aren't_ soldiers on a secret mission to destroy Sounis's navy." 

"So don't tell him," was Eugenides's reply. 

The queen just snorted. 

* * *

The steady patience that Eugenides remembered from when he was learning to read and write was all still there, and Sten was the perfect person to have on hand while Gen relearned all the little simple things about traveling that were decidedly less simple with one hand. 

His mechanical ingenuity was also welcome, from time to time. From a simple, "Here, try using your foot, like this," to an emergency repair of one of the buckles for his hook. 

They traveled as a repairer of watches and his beginning apprentice, who mostly watched. A craftsman in Sounis with an Eddisian accent was not terribly uncommon, as Sounisians knew that Eddisian craftsmen were of a high caliber. Stenides was endlessly fascinated by the variety of watches they encountered, most not as good as his master's, but as they got closer to the city, a few that were better. 

Together they stole the Sounisian uniforms that the Eddisian soldiers would wear to actually burn the navy. The soldiers had traveled separately, so as not to attract attention. 

They were to all leave the city together in the wagon, and then part ways again. Getting them all out of the city at exactly the right moment would be the tricky part. 

"That was a near thing," said Stenides, as Gen and the magus settled into the cart, but Sten had timed it perfectly, of course, had given him his _kairos._

As they left the city, Gen felt the glow of a theft well executed. 

"You may not be a thief anymore," the Magus had said. "You could still do something." 

It turned out, perhaps to his detriment, that he had been right. 


	3. Let them get to know you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love, specimens, and a little house by the sea (Take 1)

He and Eddis visited the Magus in the little hunting lodge by the tiny slice of coastline that Eddis called her own. 

Or, they tried. But he had been spending most of his time out of doors collecting weeds, and the weather was pleasant, so they continued that trend as they set out back to the capital. 

They stopped for a picnic on the ground that was once the temple of the goddess Meridite, a particularly petty goddess. Gen declined to tell the story as he remembered it, knowing more about the reality of gods now than he once had. 

He hadn't seen a god personally since Moira had told him to stop whining, but he had been feeling these little tugs, just suggestions, just the gods letting him know that they weren't done with him, that they had further plans they wanted him to carry out. 

When the Magus asked Eddis for the story instead, and they all settled in for a longer respite on the mossy stones, Eddis asked him to lay his head on her knee. 

Ah. Yes, Gen saw it now. And it did appeal to him. There would be rumors, since the philanderer had seen Eddis visiting him. Eddis wanted to put on a show for Attolia. Knew that word of this would reach Relius, Attolia's master of spies. 

"Secretary of the Archives," the Magus corrected. 

Eugenides perked to attention. The Magus had some investment in Relius's proper title. 

Or, perhaps, as a tutor, he had simply come to enjoy correcting people. 

Then, Eddis commented on the dug-up weeds. "I didn't know you had an interest in botany." 

"I don't really. I have a friend who does. He isn't well enough to travel and relies on acquaintances to send him samples and drawings." 

Curious. Who might that be? 

He made a note to look into the Magus's correspondence. 

Then Eddis began telling the story of Meridite's temple. 

Eugenides would not dare tell stories about a goddess he believed to be particularly petty, not on her own sacred ground, in the ruins of a temple that had once been her particular favorite. He would leave that to his queen. 

He lay his head in his cousin's lap and listened to her tell a story of a god stealing a mortal's heart. 


	4. Let them think they have lost you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you say "You don't kidnap your friends," you mean people in general, right? (Take 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure this is a good place to stop for the day. You can start to see the shape of it maybe. Gotta go to work, then pick through KoA again before I finish writing the next chapter, then the last third of TaT for the others.

_I want her to marry me._

_It would be good for Eddis. I believe it would be good for Attolia._

_Even if it's what she wants, she will probably need some persuading._

_Making people think they might die does seem to work fairly well, in stealing them._

_I'm stealing her for my queen, to give Eddis some leverage, but what I really want is her heart. I'm not entirely sure this will help._

_At least, I hope it will get her attention._

* * *

"I'm not sure you're sane," Sten said. 

Gen just shrugged. "It's the best plan I have," he said. 

"Then I'm sure it's a good plan. I'm still not sure you're sane." He frowned. "Don't let her kill you, all right?" 

Eugenides squinted at his brother, deciding what to say. He knew if he said _I won't,_ Sten would know that for the big fat lie it was. 

Stenides sighed, and pressed something into his hand. "At least take this," he said. 

"A watch?" Gen examined it. The joints were almost invisible. 

"It's the finest I've ever made," Sten said. "Picked up some things from the watches I repaired in Sounis. It should be resistant to sand and silt. But just in case, after your jaunt down the river and across the sea, you'll need to bring it back to me, to be cleaned." He glared at his brother. "Promise me." 

Gen clutched the watch. "I'll do my best," he said. 

* * *

He stole Attolia. 

She told him, when she learned of his pleas to Hephestia, "She comes to the aid of those who need her? She didn't come to yours." 

Nahuseresh stole her back. 

She and Eddis stole her for herself. Which was most satisfying, in the end, but it meant she needn't marry him, if she didn't want to. 

What did it mean, that she still seemed willing? That she was simply tired of dealing with those who wanted the throne, like Nahuseresh? 

He watched her closely. There was something... off. 

She didn't show much in the way of emotion, of course. Until she did. 

"There will be no altar to Hephestia in Attolia." And, quite uncharacteristically, she fled. 

They followed, trying to convince her. 

"No." 

"Why?" 

"How did I catch you when you hid in my palace? How did I know you moved through the tunnels for the hypocaust? How did I know how you entered the town and how you would escape? How did I know?" 

"I made a mistake." 

"You made a mistake. You trusted your gods. That was your mistake." 

Systematically, she dismantled his faith. Not that the gods existed, but that they had any regard at all for Gen. 


	5. Prove them wrong in spectacular fashion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And then there's Attolia.

_"You betrayed me, and I can demand to know why, if I choose."_

_"Eugenides, no."_

_"Yes!"_

The world unraveled, in shards of glass and billows of smoke and sheets of lava. Fate's threads were picked apart for him to see. 

He saw _why._

It was terrible. 

The unknown goddess had eyes heavy with knowing, what she and the others had put Eugenides through and what weighed against that in the balance. "Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?" 

No. 

No, this was his best path. 

They were with him. They had been with him all along. 

* * *

Irene Attolia had once described their wedding night as "lachrymose." 

It was a clean, composed, concise way of putting that messy occasion. Among other things, that was when he described to her, in exact detail, what he had seen when fate's strings unraveled. 

How clear it had all seemed. How he would live through ... _it_ again, a dozen times, if it meant Attolia keeping her country safe and free. 

"I couldn't do it again," she'd said. "I wouldn't. Not for anything. Not for the world." 

He cupped her face with his hand. "If you'd seen the world, the way I saw it then...." 

"No," she insisted, tears falling huge and hot against his thumb. "No." 

"I have to admit," he said, voice breaking, "I'm a little glad." 

She laughed a little, through her tears. He could see, he could feel, that she loved him. 

No, there was nothing he'd give this up to have back. 

* * *

Eugenides knew that if he was to have any kind of real influence in Attolia, he would need to have Relius behind him. 

Well, he had stolen people before. Loyal, smart people. It was a simple little trick, really. Take away their faith that their master was their best chance for power, then give a little push. 

Relius would not be so easily ambushed and manipulated as the Magus had been. Part of that came from the fact that Gen had no desire to deceive his wife, or even to stop Relius from serving her. But he needed Relius to serve him, as king, as well. 

_Well. Everyone lies. Spies especially. And lies are weak points where wedges can be driven in._

Eugenides just had to wait. 

* * *

_Ah. There's the lie._ Gen called it out. 

He expected Relius to deny it, to try and convince him. He expected to be able to gain a foothold with the spymaster. 

But Relius would rather die than divide his loyalty. He would have his queen know every detail of his betrayal. 

_Relius loves his queen more than power, or even life. I made a mistake there. She has more than his service. She has his heart._

_Once a person truly experiences the personality of Irene Attolia, what would they not do for her?_

_Gods damn it. With how well I know that, I should have known to take it into account._

Eugenides could not watch his queen torture someone else who loved her. Could not, because of everything past. Could not, because today, it was his fault. 

* * *

One of those... tugs... brought him down to the dungeon, days later. There was clearly something he still had to do. 

Neither of the monarchs of Attolia could afford to lose Relius, not entirely. Part of him was already gone. Gen could see that clear enough, could read the echoes. But being... forced to diversify does not make one a less useful tool. 

Attolia needed him back. Attolis was the only one who could bring him back. 

The only way to gain Relius's service would be to make him believe that service to Eugenides was service to Attolia. 

Which it was. 

"Believe me," he said. 

Then he left, because he had to. Because moving Relius, tending to him, would be messy, and not something Eugenides needed to see to understand. 

Relius was broken, now. Relius would always be broken, at least a little. 

Eugenides would know. 

_The gods send nightmares, to keep me humble._

_The gods send nightmares... not always to me._

_The gods are always with us, but it is not always their job to make life less painful. Their job is to shape the world, in whatever way they see fit._

Eugenides trusted his gods well enough now not to be cruel to him for the sake of cruelty. But it was always best not to offend them. 

_Be careful what you say when you are on a god's ground,_ he wanted to say to the Magus. _Especially a petty one._

The Magus had lied on consecrated ground. His friend who collected drawings of plants had not been ill. Now he was. 


	6. Offer again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you say "You don't kidnap your friends," you mean people in general, right? (Take 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo this got kinda heavy. Welp. I'm just letting it be what it is. This is my kind of self-indulgent - just roughly sketching out the bunnies as they dart by.
> 
> Last chapter should go up soon, like sometime this weekend-ish. That should make things make at least a little bit more sense.

Relius, Teleus, Costis, they would all die for their queen, and they all now knew that to serve Attolis was to serve Attolia. In all being part of the throne, they were part of each other. 

It was an odd feeling, to be only a limb of a greater body. But just as he'd learned to trust Stenides to be his hands, he could trust in this larger body. 

So when the king put his seal into Costis's hand, he knew it would be used only in service of Attolia. 

They were all a part of something greater, and that something was still threatened by the Mede. 

He'd dealt with Sounis and Attolia by stealing people, by stealing hearts. He only knew a few people from the Mede empire well enough to even think of trying that with them, and only one it might conceivably work with. 

Kamet. His friend from the kitchens with too much pride for his station, and entirely too much regard for his own knowledge of things. 

Gen thought of what he knew of Kamet. Thought of the slave's service to his master. He had to be careful this time. 

But he was sure he was right. He was sure that, even if Kamet sometimes had to trick himself into thinking he loved his master in order to survive, his staying was about power, and opportunity. 

Eugenides was sure that he could steal Kamet. 

_I've failed before. But it's still the best trick I know._

_We will only fail if the god himself drops us._

* * *

"Annux!" Kamet called him. Again. Louder. "Annux!" 

Kamet was here. 

And, clearly, very much distressed that his new friend would take the blame for the sin of... doing as he was told. 

Well, Kamet had reason to see things a little differently than Costis did, than Eugenides, than the gods. The picture grew ever larger as one approached the head of the great body that was the little peninsula and all its residents. 

Kamet knew only how to be the hands of his master. He had always been the hands of his master. There was nothing else to be. He had only left because he believed that "nothing else" had become "nothing." He could not believe that his master was not dead. 

He could not believe that someone he trusted to be part of his own body, in turn, had deceived him. 

The Laela he'd spoken of so much, when he'd spoken of home. 

"Kamet, she did it so that you could be free. As I knew she would. Because you told me so much about her." 

Even then, the gods had seen fit to funnel information his way that he would need on this path. 

They still needed him. They had had plans for this moment even then. And they had always given more of themselves, their thoughts, their words, their faces to him than they had to anyone else. 

He could not disappoint them. 

He'd stolen Kamet's life, all for the gods' plans for the little peninsula. That was clear, on Kamet's face, as he learned the truth, as he watched the life he had known slip away before him a second time, now knowing what had done it, _who_ had done it. 

"I've taken something from you that I had no right to take." 

He no longer thought of his hand, when he thought of things taken away. He thought of parts of his larger body, of Attolia, Eddis, Sounis. Of his people. And especially his daughter, and what had so nearly been his wife, as well. 

He had stopped asking if the gods had the right to do such things. He simply knew he did not. And he would not hide behind the gods, now, though they were so real to him. They were not real to Kamet. 

Well. On the other hand. Eugenides had sent no wine merchant. The only place to look for the source of that little piece of assistance was up. 

_And all I can do is pay my personal debts._

* * *

When Eugenides thanked Costis for retrieving Kamet, the guard almost flinched, and said, "I wish I hadn't." 

Costis, Gen realized, with all his noble traits, could even less justify to himself hiding behind his superiors, excusing himself by quoting his orders. 

They'd taken so much. But what had he really had? 

Eugenides pried more stories of the journey out of Costis. Costis told him of the slavers. How they had laughed. How terrified Kamet had been of them. How they threatened to take things that were not theirs to take. 

As the story went on, Costis clearly felt lighter, knowing that he had helped bring his beloved to freedom, knowing that things would no longer be that way for Kamet. That he belonged to no one. 

Costis had always, and would always, see Kamet as an equal. 

Eugenides knew better. 

He knew what it was to spend nearly an entire lifetime merely the hand of a commander, to be forbidden to own anything of consequence. He knew what it was to be beaten, humiliated, intermittently starved, but to persist anyway because your master (your queen) needed you. 

Eugenides had chosen each and every one of those things, but they had still warped him. Still made him feel as if he was somehow both more and less than those around him. 

He had stolen Kamet's life. He had stolen a person who only knew how to be a part of something greater. Kamet would see him as a master. Kamet would do whatever he asked. 

Kamet told him how to find the Medean navy. Kamet volunteered to be a scout. 

Eugenides had become a slaver. Eugenides had stolen a life. And the gods were not done with him. The gods were not done with either of them. 

_Bigger,_ the gods prodded him on. _You can be the thief of more still than that._

What was this all leading towards? What could Gen steal that was bigger than a life? 


	7. Keep your word.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love, specimens, and a little house by the sea (Take 2)

The pieces were all in place. Costis was nicely tucked away on the Ormentiedes farm. Kamet had agreed to go to Roa and spy on behalf of the little peninsula. Eugenides had agreed to help Costis win Kamet's heart. 

He thought for a long time about what, in his experience, it took to steal a heart. 

* * *

"Where is Kamet?" Costis asked. 

"I've been thinking," said Eugenides, without answering, "about the best way to steal a stubborn heart like Kamet's." 

"I don't want to _steal_ it," Costis insisted. "I want him to give it to me because he _wants_ to." 

"There are two things wrong with that," Gen said. "One, you asked a thief for help. And two, as I mentioned, he's stubborn. The kind of man who doesn't know he wants his freedom until someone steals it for him, and honestly, even then, he has trouble taking it." 

Costis looked away, sighed. "I suppose you have a point there," he agreed. "So what does it take, in your opinion?" 

The king sat, cross-legged, on the foot of Costis's bed. "First," he said, "get their attention. Second, offer them a life with you. Third, let them get to know you. Fourth, let them think they have lost you. Fifth, prove them wrong in spectacular fashion. Sixth, offer again. Seventh, keep your word." 

Costis blinked dumbly for a minute, then said, "I think I've done all that already." 

"You're ahead of the game, then. It may take more than one attempt. Going back to the fourth step and repeating from there, in this case, I think. It's a crucial step, and one that bears repeating." 

"Really?" Costis frowned. "That part seems... unkind." 

"The first time, I let her think I was with Eddis." 

Costis seemed to process this. "And the second time?" 

"Poisoned. By the Mede." He cocked his head. "The third time, struck down by my own gods. It took the second time for her to realize. The third, for her to admit it to me." He paused. "Of course, it works better if the perceived loss can truthfully be blamed on outside circumstances." _On the gods._ "Which is why I sent you home before you could speak to him." 

"A-huh," said Costis. "Thank you? I think? Where is Kamet? I haven't seen him since I've been back." 

"I've sent him away." 

"Where?" 

"Oh, Roa. To be a scout and a spy, under cover of a scribe. You should go, too." 

"And what is an Attolian soldier doing wandering around the countryside?" By this time Costis was trying and failing not to hide his smile. The sparkle in his eyes said that he trusted his king to have the best plan that could ever be conceived. 

"I don't know... find... specimens." Then Gen smirked. "I happen to know Relius likes getting drawings of plants and animals and things sent to him for his library." 

"Does he?" Costis asked flatly. 

"Find his ship before it sails. Steal his heart. Then go with him." 

"Are you going to tell me any more about this plan?" 

"Wait until the last moment. Wait until he thinks he may never speak to an Attolian ever again. Wait until he misses you more than he has ever done before. Watch his face, and wait until you cannot stand the thought of not going to him and telling him that he is wrong." 

"And then?" 

"Tell him that he can be part of your life. Tell him about the life you picture for the two of you, together." 

"You think that will do it?" 

"There's one last step," Eugenides reminded him. 

"'Keep my word,' yes, about what?" 

"Have you made him any promises?" 

Costis seemed to think, to look back over their journey. "I promised him it would be all right. That I would not leave him." 

"Just keep that promise, then. Continue to keep it. And I think that will do it." 

* * *

Then Eugenides waited. 

He read the account that Kamet had sent to Relius. The note, the casual mention of "the house." He examined all the documents that came with it and read between the lines, seeing that Relius had taught Kamet one of his codes for putting sensitive intelligence into the notes on what looked like simple drawings of specimens. They'd become fast friends, then. Relius guarded those codes jealously, and would give the active ones to no one but those he knew would not misuse them. Kamet would only share it with those he trusted absolutely, and Kamet was teaching it to Costis. 

There was a message for Eugenides, tucked into the corner of a particularly detailed drawing of a vine that crawled up the surface of a stone wall. 

_Don't send us away from each other again. We are your loyal servants, except for that._

_We are Immakuk and Ennikar. We always come back to each other. Wherever the other is, that is home._

* * *

Kamet had told Eugenides the story of Immakuk and Ennikar and the Queen of the Night. Gen was in the habit of asking impertinent questions, and he'd asked a few. 

"Were they lovers?" he'd asked. 

Kamet had looked at him for a moment, and then said, "It depends which scholars you ask." 

Gen rolled his eyes. "I'm asking _you_ ," he'd said. 

The slave seemed to assess him still more deeply, and then said, "Yes. I think they were." 

* * *

So, they were for each other. Kamet and Costis. They declined anymore to be only a part of any greater body. 

They had found a way to be equals, a way to govern themselves by being responsible only to each other. They had found a way to be happy. 

After everything Eugenides had put them both through. After he'd manipulated them, used them, nudged them into their places in his plots. They had found themselves where they had always been meant to end up. 

He felt... 

He felt like the unknown goddess and the bittersweet look in her eyes as she regarded the future she had made for Gen and Irene. What it had cost Gen. 

Gods steal destinies. 

Eugenides, they called him. Before he was Queen's Thief. Before Attolis. Before Annux. He would always, ultimately, be Eugenides. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow so that was a thing. I do not know what possessed me to try and write this, but here it is. I hope that now that the last chapter is in place, it makes a little more sense!


End file.
